


Won't you stay with me, my darling? (when my walls start burning down)

by PhantomSage



Category: The Bifrost Incident - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: And you know what maybe that's what matters, But only very minor ones!, Canon Compliant, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Sort of? - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, i wanted to write them being happy together but i just made them sad, they both die but they get to be happy first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 07:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23347777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomSage/pseuds/PhantomSage
Summary: Eighty years is eighty years, and they have time..A series of vignettes of Loki and Sigyn, together, in the Bifrost
Relationships: Loki/Sigyn (The Bifrost Incident)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	Won't you stay with me, my darling? (when my walls start burning down)

They sleep a lot, these days. 

There’s not much else to do when you’re trapped in an engine room in the middle of a man made wormhole, and while it is days until the both of them realize they haven’t felt hunger or thirst, they sleep, Loki in a painful haze, Sigyn resting against the side of the altar, the gentle thrumming of the runes and sigils is almost comforting in sleep. The first time Sigyn nodded off, the tube slipped and the two of them were jolted awake as the compartment shuddered. Loki’s hand flew to her chest, wincing as she kept the tube in her heart, and the compartment steadied itself as the blood resumed its usual dripping.

Later, Sigyn rips out a bit of wiring from the sideboard - “Not like it needs electricity to run anyways” Loki commented wryly - and with some help from Loki, sets up a complicated bit of rigging that keeps the tube in place as she sleeps.

It doesn’t always work. Sometimes, Loki nods off as well, with nothing to occupy her mind but watching the rainbow light wash over Sigyn’s features, and she wakes up to Sigyn adjusting the tube that Loki has dislodged in her sleep. Her dreams are nowhere as bad as they were in the beginning, (Not actually the beginning, she has to remind herself, she did not begin life in Odin’s laboratory, but it’s hard when sometimes all she can remember is waking up on a cold slab of a table, her mind a frightening nothingness, with her once-mentor looming over her like a dark shadow) but sometimes, she dreams of the train.

Sigyn had stayed in the engine room when the train had derailed, so she had only caught a glimpse of the train’s corridors as they uncoupled the carriages, but Loki had walked the length of the Ratatosk Express. In her nightmares, she is dragged into that screaming chaos, reaching out for her wife. Odin wraps her tendrils around Sigyn’s neck, Thor comes rushing at her, bloody hammer held high, eyes blank with the rage that infected Garm, the rainbow mass encircling the engine room deciding that it no longer needs them to bring around the apocalypse and devouring them in one fell swoop -

She doesn’t tell Sigyn, but she lets her fuss over Loki whenever she starts tossing and turning in her sleep, gently shaking her awake. “Nightmare?” She asks, and Loki hums an affirmative before letting Sigyn press a kiss to her forehead, murmuring quiet reassurances, before drifting back into dreamless sleep. The first time Sigyn climbs onto the altar, after Loki has determined it safe, Loki lets out a contented sigh as Sigyn carefully wraps her arms around her from behind. It’s not the most comfortable position, but Loki sleeps better than she has in a long while.

When the pain starts to get too much, she starts tugging sleepily at Sigyn’s sleeve. She gives Loki a fond smile before quickly adjusting the tube and laying behind her on the altar, their breaths evening out as the Bifrost pulses around them like a heartbeat.

None of them bring up the fact that they don’t need it.

-

The first time they fight, it’s almost absurd. Sigyn had brought up the jailbreak, Loki had made a shocked sort of noise, and it had only devolved from there.

“It was a stupid plan!” Loki fumes, jabbing an accusing finger at Sigyn. “Fenrir would never have wanted you to do something as risky as this, what in Asgard’s name were you thinking?”

“It was the perfect opportunity! He wasn’t going to last any longer on Hel, we had to do something!” 

“It was still a huge risk! We designed those missiles together, I warned you how dangerous anything involving the train was, and you- _you just waltz up in a chief attendant uniform!_ ” 

“It was a good plan!” snaps Sigyn, “Who knew anything like this would happen!” 

“I warned you!” Loki snarls, nose to nose with Sigyn, eyes flashing and fierce. “You knew how afraid of the train I was, what on earth made you think  _ anything _ involving it was a good idea?”

“ _Well, you weren’t there!_ ” 

That makes Loki shut up, and Sigyn feels a vicious pang of satisfaction before immediately regretting it. 

“You weren’t there.” Sigyn repeats, quieter. “I know -” she holds up a hand as Loki opens her mouth to speak, “I know it wasn’t something you had a choice in, and I am so sorry for that, for not realizing Odin wouldn’t be done with you yet, and the minute I saw you in that compartment, I was ready to tear the old hag’s heart out, but for the last 10 years, you haven’t been there, and it was -” _Weeks numb with shock as she relocated rebel bases, redirecting supply lines, patching up leaks, they couldn’t lose anyone else, desperately searching for ways to save them, right up until -_

She takes a deep breath, taking care not to jostle the tube. ”It was...difficult.” 

Even Loki registers the understatement, making a derisive sort of noise as she tries to sit up more fully, but Sigyn’s hand on the tube keeps the gentle pressure on her chest, and Loki slowly sinks back down to lie on the altar, eyes on Sigyn’s all the while.

“I never had time to grieve for you, love. After you and Fenrir were gone, the entirety of the resistance fell on my shoulders, and all I could do was resign myself to the fact that I’d never - ” Sigyn’s breath hitches. “And you never told me what the train was for, just that it was dangerous. Well, in the past ten years, I’ve done plenty of dangerous things, and they might not have all paid off, but I was fine. Then finally, after a decade, there is a chance that Fenrir can get out, if only I would do one more dangerous thing - could you blame me for taking it? No matter how dangerous this damned train was, I’d have done it for the chance to save that kid.” 

The words “ _When I couldn’t save you_ ” went unsaid, but they linger in the air between them. Sigyn looks down pointedly at the silver sheen of the altar, shoulders sagging with the weight of her outburst. She feels Loki carefully lift her hand, laying it gently on hers to steady it. Shit. She hadn’t even noticed it was trembling.

“Oh, Loki, I’m sorry -” “No,” Loki said firmly, gaze firm and unwavering. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that, I shouldn’t have. You’re - you’re right, love. I wasn’t there, and I have no right at all to talk about throwing myself into bonfires to save the people I love. I shouldn’t have put down your plan when I wasn’t aware of the circumstances, when I didn’t tell you everything you needed to know, and I am so sorry that I couldn’t be there for you when it mattered.” 

She takes her hand away to cradle Sigyn’s cheek, and it’s just like the last few minutes never happened. “I should have known better, love. Forgive me?” Loki asks. Sigyn leans into her hand, looking up to meet Loki’s remorseful gaze, and lets out a sigh.

“There’s nothing to forgive, darling. None at all.”

“You too, Sigyn. You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

“Mmm. Can we both agree to blame Odin for everything?”

“Absolutely,” Loki says, expression intense. “And blame -” she looks up, making a vague, encompassing gesture, and the compartment around them shudders.

“Oh, shut up,” Sigyn mutters, casting a glare upwards, “I’m trying to have a moment with my wife here, we don’t need you butting in.” The compartment gives a particularly loud creak and falls silent, leaving both of them in shocked silence. 

Loki looks at Sigyn, eyes wide. “Darling,” she asks, “Did you just tell Yog Sothoth to shut up?” 

Sigyn shrugs helplessly. “I...I did? I think?”

She stifles a grin, trying to disguise her delight, but when Loki meets her gaze, it’s too much for them both to handle and they burst out laughing. They haven’t laughed in so long, it’s hard for them to stop, Sigyn’s stomach aching with it. Nords above, it feels good. Next to her, Loki curls up on herself on the altar, wheezing a little as she lets out a bright, happy chortle, and Sigyn’s heart swells. She never thought she’d ever hear Loki’s laugh again, see her smile, and having this moment feels nothing short of miraculous.

“It wasn’t a bad plan, you know.” Loki says, when the laughing subsides. 

“Really?” Sigyn’s eyes go wide in false amazement. “Miss Hotshot Asgardian Genius Mathematician, admitting that I had a good plan?”

Loki snorts, elbowing her in the ribs. “It’s _Mrs_. Hotshot Asgardian Genius Mathematician to you. And I didn’t say it was good, I just said not bad.” 

“Nope, you absolutely meant good,” Sigyn smirks cheerfully.

“...Maybe. If Odin hadn’t tried to summon a pridormal eldritch being to bring about the end of the world with it.” 

“Details, details,” Sigyn says, waving a dismissive hand. Loki bats it away, rolling her eyes, and they both giggle.

“I’ll admit one thing.”

“What?” 

“You do look _very_ good in uniform.”

-

“It’s been twenty years,” Loki says one day, her head propped up on Sigyn’s lap. Sigyn lets out a low hum, fingers busy braiding Loki’s long hair. Feels nice. 

“Twenty years since when?” she asks.

“Since we got married.”

“Really? Feels longer.” A narrow braid swings onto Loki’s nose, and she sneezes, prompting an admonishing swat on the arm. “How do you know?”

“I just - do, I suppose.”

Sigyn cards her fingers through Loki’s hair and she melts with a happy sigh. Sigyn automatically reaches out to see if the tube has slipped, and Loki catches sight of the ring on her hand, winking in the dim glow of the sigils.

Loki’s own finger is bare. She had woken up with nothing except the surgical gown Odin had given her, and the phantom weight of her own ring on her finger - though she hadn’t known what was wrong. She had a slight tan line on her ring finger though, and Loki remembers puzzling over the pale strip of skin in her solitary cell before it faded, holding it up to the light and imagining what it might have looked like. _It must have been a very special ring,_ Loki had thought, twisting her hand this way and that, trying to picture it, _if I'd kept it on for so long._

Loki still doesn’t know what her wedding ring looks like. Her memory still has gaps, or gets hopelessly tangled with images the Bifrost forced into her mind. She remembers important events - getting promoted to Odin’s assistant, a particularly rowdy night out with Thor and Frey, meeting Sigyn - but others elude her, slipping out of her grasp like quicksilver whenever she tries to make sense of the shape of them.

“What did my ring look like?” she asks Sigyn. She can’t see her wife, but she can picture her blinking in surprise at the abrupt shift in conversation.

“It was the same as mine,” Sigyn replies, taking it off and placing her ring gently in Loki’s palm for Loki to inspect. “But it was in gold.”

Loki turns it over, examining the delicate silver metalwork twining around the blue gems like vines. The old runes on the inside - fortune, happiness, long life - gleam subtly, and Loki runs a finger over them, trying to remember the feel of them, before fitting it back on Sigyn’s finger.

“You don’t have yours.” It’s not a question, and Loki does her best approximation of a shrug.

“Odin took it.”

“I figured. I noticed it was gone when I saw you again,” She can hear the frown in her Sigyn’s voice, and reaches up to pat - well, what presumably is her cheek, but by the fond sigh she gets, she’s probably missed. “I’m going to have to redo this, could you -? ”

“Alright,” Loki mumbles, Sigyn guiding her to shift position on her lap, her nimble hands undoing her work. It’s enough to put her to sleep, so Loki closes her eyes.

“I wish I still had it. Would be,” Loki yawns, “would be nice.”

She hears Sigyn hums in an affirmative and succumbs to unconsciousness.

Loki wakes up to a muffled curse, and the first thing she notices is the hard surface of the altar under her head. She turns her head towards the sound, disoriented, and sees Sigyn sitting next to the pried-open sideboard, bits of bismuth chipped away from the intricate engravings on the panelling of the engine room and littering the floor.

“Sigyn? Wha’ ‘re you doin’?” she mumbles, disoriented, and Sigyn whips her head around with a guilty expression, hands immediately flying behind her back.

“Nothing!” she protests, but at a disbelieving look from Loki, she sighs. “It’s silly,” she says slowly holding out her palm, and Loki blinks. A pair of rings, made from braided wire and shards of bismuth lie innocently in Sigyn’s hand, as if the sight of them doesn't feel like a gut punch.

“You said you’d still want your ring, and I think you should have one, something Odin can’t take away, then I - I might have gone a little overboard.” Her eyes flick upwards, and when Loki reaches up she feels her hair, running her hands over them and realizes what Sigyn has done.

“Marriage braids”, Loki whispers, awestruck. Sigyn has started babbling now, and she won’t meet Loki’s eyes, her cheeks flushed.

“I know it’s not the same, what with the rainbow bits, and I wasn’t sure if you’d like another reminder of our - current predicament, I suppose, but it was the only thing that worked and I didn’t know how to take the gems from my own ring and we’re both a little different now so I was hoping it fit but I don’t know if it’s in bad taste, I can throw them out if you don’t like them - Loki, please just say something, I don’t know - mmph!”

Loki pulls her over for a bruising kiss, absolutely giddy with delight, only pulling away when she starts getting lightheaded. “You - impossibly - wonderful - creature,” she gets out between kisses, and Sigyn lets out a sigh of relief. “Then, I’m guessing that’s a “no” to me throwing the rings out?” she teases.

“Don’t you dare,” Loki hisses, pressing a peck on her nose, “Or I’m throwing myself right out with them.”

Sigyn beams, and gently takes Loki's hand, slipping the ring onto her finger. This close, Loki can see where it sits a little loose. The wires are a little crooked, and the shards of bismuth are rough and jagged, unevenly spaced. The jewellers on Asgard would have fainted dead away in horror if ever accused of making such a thing.

Loki loves it. It's hers, and she loves it. She takes the other ring from Sigyn, sliding it onto her wife's finger, and they both admire their new wedding rings.

"Alright," Loki says, pressing a final kiss to Sigyn's knuckles, "turn around. I might have forgotten a few details, so you're going to have to talk me through doing your braids."

-

There are bad days.

Loki wakes up and forgets where she is, Loki wakes up and forgets who she is, Loki wakes up and her eyes are kaleidoscopic whirlpools of insanity and she screams with a voice that is not hers for Siygin to kill her, to end the pain. Every time, Sigyn grits her teeth and plugs her ears and holds the tube to Loki’s heart until her wife’s flailing weakens and slows. 

Sometimes, she is even lucid. The worst time is when Loki logically outlines a list of reasons why Sigyn should just wrap her hands around Loki’s throat and squeeze, her eyes flickering between emerald green and the rest of the rainbow, and Sigyn has to clench shut her eyes shut as she keeps the tube steady, lest Loki pull it out herself and bleed out on the compartment floor.

Sigyn has her bad days too, when she grows quiet and snappish, can’t stand to see the life drain out of Loki, bit by bit. The walls around her grow too close, the compartment, already dominated by the altar, grow too small to bear. She paces the engine room like a caged lion, agitated and restless, as Loki holds the tube to her own chest and tries to breathe even. 

But those are the bad days, and while they never truly go away, as time passes, they come fewer and fewer. And afterwards, Sigyn holds Loki through the flood of apologies. Afterwards, Loki strokes Sigyn's hair as she leans, exhausted, against the altar.

-

When they find the first streaks of silver in Loki’s dark hair, when crow’s feet tuck themselves in the corners of Sigyn’s eyes, they don’t know what to think. Loki theorizes - does this mean we can die? If the train is going to stop sooner or later? - but when Sigyn quietly asks her to stop, the theories turn fanciful. 

_Have I ever told you what my mother said about getting white hairs? That the winter spirits had visited in the night and gave you kisses. She called wrinkles love lines, and they got deeper the more you were loved._ Sigyn laughs at her nonsense, and at the indignant glare Loki gives her when she asks if she wants her to help her put in elder's braids.

Loki has always ached. Having the blood slowly drip out of you to power an abomination fear train bringing the end of the world hurts, who knew? Loki giggles quietly at her little joke, and Sigyn lets out an exasperated sigh. A little morbid, but it grew old after the first dozen or so times Loki made it.

Now though, Loki feels that ache more acutely, and it's getting harder to breathe. Sigyn's ring bites into her palm as she grips her hand, and Loki sees the imprint of her own ring on Sigyn's hand when she stands up to shake the pins and needles from her limbs. Loki doesn't mention it, not after Sigyn gave her a puzzled look when she apologized for it the first time, but she makes sure to tell her wife awful jokes that make her groan, and dust kisses over her knuckles.

Sometimes, when it is all Loki can do to keep her eyes open, Sigyn holds her hand, traces the furrows on her palms with a featherlight touch, lingering around her ring finger.

"Hello there, beautiful." Loki manages, and Sigyn smiles.

"Hello yourself," she replies.

Against all odds, they've grown old together, and Loki quietly thanks every higher power (except Yog Sothoth) for allowing it.

-

The engine room shudders, and for the first time in 80 years, Loki’s heartbeat falters. They lock eyes, and Sigyn sees something like peace creep into her wife’s eyes. Her hair has gone snow white. Like starlight, Sigyn thinks dazedly, tucking a flyaway strand behind Loki’s ear, pressing her forehead to her wife’s. It is Loki’s heart the train is connected to, but there is an unbearable ache in Sigyn’s chest as Loki presses her palm against her cheek.

“Is it time?” Sigyn whispers, and Loki gives her a small nod.

The altar isn’t quite big enough for two people but they manage, like they have a million times before: Loki carefully shifting away, careful not to jostle the tube, and Sigyn making herself as small as she can, nestling herself as close to her wife as she can get. the two curled in towards each other, nothing but quiet breathing and two heartbeats between them. Sigyn’s vision blurs, before Loki raises a pale hand to wipe the tears away.

“You’d think I cried enough the first time round.” Sigyn mutters wetly, and Loki gives her a tremulous smile.

“I’m so sorry” she whispers, afraid to break the hush, “So sorry that you had to go through that alone, love.”

“No, don’t be." A shuddering breath, and around them, the Bifrost pulses. "We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“Mmph,” Loki agrees. She can sense it now, and by the way Sigyn tenses beside her, she knows her wife can feel it too. The Ratatosk Express is about to arrive. She reaches out to clutch at Sigyn’s hand, marvelling at the furrows that have carved their way into her dark skin. It’s rough and callused, nothing like the soft little palm that Loki had shook when the two had first met. Sigyn had looked a member of the Asgardian elite in the eye, given her a sly wink that promised nothing but trouble, and _oh_ , Loki loves her so terribly much. 

“Don’t leave without me?” Loki asks her wife, as the muffled white noise that has accompanied them so long in the Bifrost turns into a roar. She already knows the answer she will get, but it doesn’t stop her from wanting to hear her wife’s voice, one last time, at the end of all things.

“Never,” Sigyn smiles, small and sweet, leaning in to press a tender kiss to her forehead.

Loki takes in a final breath, her heartbeat giving one last valiant thump-

And the Ratatosk Express finally arrives in Midgard.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Curses" by The Crane Wives, which is more of a Loki/Sigyn song than i expected, so go check it out! I honestly started with fluff, but then i just made myself sad.
> 
> If you want to see me yelling into the void, come yell with me at claryghost on tumblr. I art sometimes too!


End file.
